and repose—a warm, sunny harbour after the storms and chills of the world outside; therefore I take my own rest at the time you take yours. Is not this better than to be always keeping before you, by help of a little management, the conviction that I am a weary victim? Our interests are mutual, and I feel that the knowledge I am resting adds to your repose.' Mr Lighte's face glowed with pleasure at his wife's candid, simple, confiding words; she sympathised with and understood him, she only in the great wide world! How he loved her! How good, and true, and gentle, she had always been! sides, I am not sure but what you call meanness in Murke is, after all, commendable foresight. Do you not remember what a spendthrift he was in his first wife's day?' 'No, Charles; I remember that, when we were lovers, we used to admire his generous, disinterested conduct. I do not know a man whose position was more truly enviable than his, at the time of which we speak.' 'What! besieged by high and low for help, never sure of a moment at his own command! Do you call it enviable to be at every one's beck and call? Was a poor family burned out, or somebody's fifth cousin to be buried, or a minister to be admonished or supported, or a returning prodigal to make peace with his faMrs Lighte awoke first from her re-mily, or a lunatic taken to the hospital, verie; she was not accustomed to waste or a city improvement made, no one time in dreams. could accomplish the object so well as Murke.' Thus he thought, as they both sat dreaming by the fireside. 'Charles, while I think of it, for I forgot this morning, the white sugar is all out' (they had been married a great while, and the transition from sentiment to household wants was natural for her); 'we must have another barrel.' This brought Charles Lighte back to the purpose for which he had thrown aside his newspaper. 'Don't you think, Carrie, that now we have so many children, and they all young, we might use brown sugar instead of white?' 'What shall I do for company? and, besides, children have as sensitive palates as we. I recollect well how, in my childhood, I disliked coarse, cheap food. And now your family are all epicures.' 'What! gluttons?' 'Oh no; but if meat is an hour too old, or bread a trifle done, or eggs are in the least altered, or pudding is heavy, nothing will do but you must procure a substitute; the things are not really bad; many would eat on for the sake of economy.' 'Is there no good result from my epicureanism?' 'Yes; I am willing to own that no man in the city has more nutritious and palatable food on his table than I; but, Carrie, the times are hard, and we must begin to economise.' 'Now, I understand; you have been talking with Mr Murke; I thought you meant to dissolve your co-partnership in the spring; that man will spoil you with his meanness.' 'I cannot afford to dissolve yet; my family expenses are too heavy. And, be 'And his pleasure lay in his duty; how his honest face would glow with delight, as, in his boyish way, he walked up and down our parlour, relating the success of some benevolent scheme! What a pity he could not have died then! the rough exterior would have fallen away from a strong yet gentle soul, as beautiful and radiant as any angel that ever entered heaven.' 'But, Carrie, you little enthusiast, what would have happened to his wife and children? Had William Murke died ten years ago, they might have been in the poorhouse, for he had not saved a penny then; now they will all inherit handsome fortunes.' 'Oh, Charles, you cannot be in earnest; the world has not so blinded you, but you must feel that the wealth in his purse is a poor compensation for the wealth that is fast dying out of his soul. Think what a cheerless home, think how his children are neglected, how ignorant they are allowed to remain of all the courtesies and amenities of life, and what little scarecrows in appearance!' 'Scandal, Carrie! scandal!' Truth! But a truth is as bad as scandal; that second wife is to be his ruin yet, mark my prophecy! She has retrenched, until she has scraped all the beauty, and polish, and gilding, all the treasure and worth out of his house, and poured them into his money-bags. that an advantage? Is money better than the money's worth? Miserly people Is worship the symbol, and forget or neglect the truth it symbolises.' 'You are too hard upon Mrs Murke; she brought her husband £3000, and had a right to demand that he should add his share to the family fund. She is saving for his children.' 'Of what advantage will money be, when they do not know how to use and enjoy it? Wealth only lifts vulgarity and ignorance upon a pedestal, where they shall be a surer mark for ridicule and contempt. But, Charles, let us leave the Murkes to manage their own way; and tell me what you think of sending the children to the dancing-school; they are full old enough, and if you do not feel able to afford the expense, I can do very well without the silk dress you promised me this autumn.' 'I am tired of those old dresses you have turned so many times; you must have the silk; and as for the children, pray, what real need is there of their learning to dance?' 'It is a pleasant accomplishment; it makes them graceful and gentle; prepares them, in short, for the society in which we hope they will maintain an honourable place.' 'How ambitious you are! but have your way, I will trust a mother's instinct against all reasoning.' The ghosts of Mr and Mrs Murke had been allayed, but only for one evening; day after day they returned to perplex and weary, but never vanquish, good little Mrs Lighte. It was 'Carrie, Murke has taken a house in the suburbs; the rent is cheaper, but that's not the best: he assures me that, by moving to an inaccessible place, he is rid of scores of relatives and friends, who formerly made a convenience of his house, almost converting it into a hotel. Now the next house to Murke's is unoccupied; had we not better remove thither?' 'Two miles from our children's school, and our church, and your office! I wonder if Mrs Murke ever happened to read what the Bible says about "entertaining strangers;" how often we meet these injunctions, "be courteous;" "be hospitable;" "given to hospitality;" "entertaining the saints;" "ministering unto others' necessities." Let us remain where we are, my husband; and while we have a crust of bread, let us share it with our friends.' So Mr Lighte went whistling to his office, thanking Providence that he had such a wise helpmeet. But the ghosts returned. To tell the truth, my teeth have ached for a fortnight, and I am half worn out with pain.' 'Why did you not tell me earlier? Pray, go to a dentist immediately.' 'I knew this would be the first thought with you; and dentists claim such exorbitant prices, I could not bear to add one of Dr Bright's bills to our expenses; but I will walk as far as his house with you this very afternoon.' That's right. Yet, Carrie, now I remember, Murke recommended a Mr Huddle, who fills teeth for just half what Bright charges.' Is that all he told you?' 'Yes.' 'Mr Huddle filled Mrs Murke's teeth so badly, that in three years they had half broken out, and the other half were blackened with decay; even after this, their eldest daughter was sent to the same person, and her fine teeth will be sacrificed in consequence.' 'But Huddle is making a beautiful set of false teeth for Mrs Murke.' 'You'll see if they are not always breaking, and set in such brassy gold that they will fill her mouth with canker.' 'Ah, I yield; you are foresighted!' and the husband and wife departed on their way to Dr Bright's. Yet the ghosts tracked them home again. Carrie, Mrs Murke has sent away her servant; and her board, and wages, and waste are subtracted at once from the family expenses; do you not think that we might do the same?' 'No, my dear. I am constantly and fully occupied already.' "I know that; but Murke says you can get worlds of work out of children; keep Helen at home from school awhile, the rest from study will do her good. Ned can wait upon you and set tables; and the little ones may also gradually be drawn into harness." 'My' children are not colts!' Mrs Lighte had never addressed her husband with so much asperity before. 'It is but a little they could do at best, and why compel them to this? Are we not too sure that in after life care and toil will enter; and well for them, poor things, if it do not make up the whole sum of their lives!' Let us prepare them for it then by early teaching.' 'Yes, by the teaching of example; we shall never make them industrious men and women, by disgusting them with work in their childhood. Let us accustom them to a cheerful, orderly household, to palatable food, and decent clothing; they will not readily submit to a change in after years. Let us make our children remember home as a pleasant place, not as a theatre of exactions, mortifications, and querulous complaints.' The ghosts came once more, and the children siding with their mother, this time the influence of the Murkes was vanquished and annihilated. 'Carrie, Murke and I have been comparing expenses, and it frightens me to find my own triple the amount of his; we must retrench.' 'In what way? I am ready.' 'In a hundred ways: our house is too large; our fires are too bright, our table is too luxurious; our children dress too well; we have too much company; our pew at church is too expensive-the Murkes have a pew close by the door, they hear quite as well, and pay only half the sum that is required for ours; they close two-thirds of their house, and thus are rid of the expense of heating it.' 'Wait a minute! their water-pipes have frozen and flooded it three times this winter; the expense of repairing which cost more than several tons of coal.' "That was only an accident. Murke covers his fire with ashes, and the coal burns half as long again in consequence.' 'Yes, and their sitting-room is like Greenland.' 'Cool rooms make children hardy.' 'Oh, father,' broke in a little voice, 'don't heat our room with ashes and water, don't! Coming home from school the other day, I should have cried with cold, but I kept thinking of our good, bright fire.' Yes,' said another, and last week I called Willie Murke in here to warm his hands, he looked so cold as he was running by; and he stared as if he never saw a parlour before, and asked if we always kept our piano unlocked, and lived in the front room, and had silver spoons on the table, and other plates for pudding. He said he wished that he had a mother like mine. Why, you can see sparkles of ice on the inside of Mr Murke's hall-door all winter long.' 'Hush, children, don't interrupt when your mother and I are talking. The butcher calls here, Carrie, twice a-week; and Murke says they use salted and dried meat, which they procure at wholesale, and pickle themselves.' 'Do you like pork very much?' wlaspered Lizzie Lighte, pulling her mother's sleeve. 'And Mrs Murke doesn't use butter nor pork for frying griddle cakes; a little dried salt, they assured me, will answer every purpose.' 'I know one thing, I'm glad mother doesn't have griddles greased with salt,' ventured Lizzie. "Then these potatoes, bad as they are, come very expensive. Murke substitutes Indian-corn dumplings.' 'Boiled in water, I suppose? Palatable!' 'What do they make instead of puddings?' asked Lizzie, who was very fond of the latter delicacy. Mrs Lighte looked smilingly for her husband's answer. "They do not eat such luxuries, my child; Mr Murke is saving up against he grows old.' 'Why, father, we'll take care of you when you are old; and I mean to have a home just like ours, puddings and all,' said the child. Yet the Murkes do have some luxuries; for when the cake gets burned, Mary often brings the crusts to school for her luncheon; she says her mother told her that they'd make her breath sweet, but solid cake was poisonous. I shouldn't think she'd give poison to her company.' The ghost was banished; but the thrifty woman known as Mrs Murke came one last time to the house of Charles Lighte. There was to be a funeral on the morrow; the sofa by the fireside was empty, and dust was gathering over the workbox that stood on the centre-table; a group of children were huddling together, crying as if their hearts would break. After the long life-work, she had folded her hands at last, and the corpse lay waiting for burial-Carrie, the provident mother, the faithful wife, the good, gentle, sympathising friend. And as Charles Lighte stood watching her, with sorrow too deep for tears, Mrs Murke came to offer consolation She said— 'Yes, she was a good and a kind neighbour to me. I shall never forget her early influence over my husband. But, Mr Lighte, we must not waste time in grief; and every sorrow has its compensations. You have now one less to support in these hard times. Your wife had a great many children, and was ambitious for them, and liked to keep up a good appearance in the world. She was an excellent woman, but you may find another that will do as well as she, and save your money beside.' which he is eagerly welcomed and cared for with watchful love. His children continually develop before his eyes the traits which he has now learned to appeciate in his buried wife. They have taken the place in society for which their mother fitted them; have married into good families, are surrounded with refined friends, and make themselves attractive by whatever among the comforts and elegancies of life may be within their reach. As Charles Lighte-an old man now'Ah,' broke forth the husband, too sits thus at the fireside of his children, grieved for anger, 'she spent for us; she and watches his daughters, ornaments to watched, and planned, and wasted all society, blessings to their homes, comher strength for our welfare; this house forters to the destitute; and his sons, foris full of the works of her hands. My ward in all good works and manly enheart is full of recollections of her patient terprises, tears, not of loneliness, but of love and industry. I have too often gratitude, fill his eyes, and he thinks how pained the gentle heart that is sleeping the good wife 'being dead, yet speaketh.' here, by repeating your advice. Yester- Yea, 'let her own words praise her.' day my partnership with your husband Reader, on no account disparage dissolved; to-day, Mrs Murke, I beg leave the excellent and needful virtue of ecoto dissolve my acquaintance with your-nomy; but learn, by this sketch, drawn self.' from actual life, that there are kinds of waste which lead to wealth, and kinds of accumulation which lead to miserable waste. And they buried her, that good Carrie. 'With the fruit of her hands' she had planted a vineyard, and when she was dead, her husband and children dwelt therein.' The Murkes added gold to gold, and 'laded their souls with that thick clay.' They built a fine house, and gave a great formal party every year; then covered the furniture, packed away the silver, locked the parlours, and lived in a few small back rooms. Mr Murke's daughters married early, to escape the ungenial home, accepted the first adventurers that offered themselves; and one by one came back to him, with wasted health and ruined hopes, and a family of children. His sons rushed into dishonesty and extravagance, and were a living disgrace and sorrow to the parents' hearts. Doling out with many a sigh the scanty pittance which they consider needful for the wants of their children and grandchildren, Mr and Mrs Murke live alone in their house, pore over newspapers and needs, discuss stocks, bonds, and notes, and feel poor-as well they may, who have lost their souls for the sake of the gold which perisheth. Mr Lighte, with sufficient property for all his wants, divides his time between many households, all copies of the dear one he can never forget; and in each of ALFRED THE GREAT. He seems, in The merit of this prince, both in private and public life, may, with advantage, be set in opposition to that of any monarch or citizen, which the annals of any nation or any age can present to us. deed, to be the complete model of that perfect character which, under the denomination of a sage, or wise man, the philosophers have been fond of delineating, rather as a fiction of their imagination, than in hopes of ever seeing it reduced to practice; so happily were all his virtues tempered together, so justly were they blended, and so powerfully did each prevent the other from exceeding its proper bounds! He knew how to conciliate the boldest enterprise with the coolest moderation; the most obstinate perseverance with the easiest flexibility; the most severe justice with the greatest lenity; the most vigorous command with the greatest affability of deportment; the highest capacity and inclination for science with the most shining talents for action. His civil and military virtues are almost equally the objects of our admiration; excepting only that the former, being more rare among princes, as well as more useful, seem chiefly to challenge our applause. Nature, also, as if desirous that so bright a production of her skill should be set in the fairest light, had bestowed on him all bodily accomplishments: vigour of limbs, dignity of shape and air, and a pleasant, engaging, and open countenance. Fortune alone, by throwing him into that barbarous age, deprived him of historians worthy to transmit his fame to posterity; and we wish to see him delineated in more lively colours, and with more particular strokes, that we may at least perceive some of those small specks and blemishes from which, as a man, it is impossible he could be entirely exempted. -Hume. maintaining a friendly peace with the DESERT BISCUITS. In passing through a village on a low hill, called Er-rufayin, we stopped under a large tree near the sheikh's house to make a cup of coffee, and though he had gone from home, our carpets were hardly spread when two bowls of the national drink, the 'abry, were sent to us from the harem. This is a very thin wafer of dur SPURIOUS CHIVALRY. Suggested by that passage, Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.' There was once an age when it had been most unfortunate to be a bad man; the good ones were so formidably active and courageous. There were a class of men whose profession was martial benevolence. They lived but for the annihilation of wrongs; to defend innocence; to dwell in tempests, that goodness might dwell in peace; to deliver the oppressed and captives, and to dash the tyrant down. Wo then to the castles of proud wicked-rah broken into small particles, on which ness, to magicians, robbers, giants, dragons; for the wandering heroes vowed their destruction. This famous age is gone. But in every age it has been deemed honourable to wage war against the mischievous things and the mischievous beings that have infested the earth. 'Gallant and heroic world!' we are inclined to exclaim, while we contemplate the mighty resistance made to invading armies, elements, or plagues; or the spirited persecution that has incessantly been carried on against robbers, pirates, monsters, serpents, and wild beasts; for tigers, wolves, hyenas, have been pursued to death. The avenging spirit has hunted the timid thief, and even condescended to crush each poor reptile that has been deemed offensive. But the world of fools!' we cry, while we consider that SIN, the hideous parent of all evils, and for ever multiplying her brood of monsters over the world, is quietly, or even complacently, allowed here to inhabit or to ravage. Where are the heroes who resist unto blood, striving against sin? Should we weep or laugh at the foolishness of mankind childishly spending their indignation and force against petty evils, and water, sometimes with the addition of red pepper, is poured. After standing for a few minutes, the water acquires a cool acid taste, which is very grateful, and the nourishing drink thus produced is first ground into a coarse meal between stones. It is said to be extremely wholesome. The durrah for preparing this kind of bread is then wetted with water, and subjected to the action of the stones until it has acquired the consistency of a thick cream; it is left for three days to ferment until it becomes quite acid, when it is finally rolled into very thin wafers about eighteen inches in diameter, and spread upon a hot plate of earthenware like the common bread of the country; the baking is very slow, as the wafer is not coloured, while it becomes perfectly brittle. In this condition it will keep for many months, and no native of these countries travels without a supply of it in his saddle-bags. It might perhaps prove a useful addition to a ship's stores on long voyages, the acid which it contains having, in the opinion of the people of Soudan, the same purifying effect on the blood as that of the lemon.-Hamilton's Wanderings. |